The last working day of their trip dawned cold and clear, not even a whisper of a breeze to disrupt Hermione's hair as she coiled it at the crown of her head. She hated wearing her hair up like this, trying to keep it contained and close to her skull without overdoing the tension to the point of developing a headache. She wouldn't really have the option to start over once they began their descent, but she figured that by tying it off first thing in the morning, she'd have plenty of time to recognize the signs of a too-tight style and make any necessary adjustments before they entered the lake.

She parceled the huff that wanted to escape her throat into a calming sigh instead, forcing herself to slow its release through her nose. There was already a lot riding on today, and Hermione had resolved to try really, really hard not to add to the pressure by getting worked up over small things.

Take this morning, for example. She'd woken with her cheek smushed against Malfoy's bicep, her own stale breath bouncing back at her off of his chest and an undignified bit of drool pooling out the corner of her mouth. He'd loosened his hold on her at some point in the night, but the one on top was still draped over her upper arm, weighing her down unpleasantly. It had been a terribly awkward way to wake up, but Hermione had quickly thrown the discomfort out of her mind. In fact, she hadn't been able to stop smiling for more than an intentional few minutes since.

It helped that he'd only awoken after she'd surreptitiously wiped the small puddle from his skin.

When she pulled her eyes from the darkness of the lake it was because her stomach had all but demanded attention. She was grateful for the normalcy of hunger. In the past, the hours leading up to an important moment—whether a department presentation or a press interview or a student dance in the Great Hall—typically came with a frustrating inability to force down more than a few mouthfuls of food before she felt like retching it all back up again. Today, she felt deeply normal. Calm. Prepared. Happy. Proud.

The only concern that really niggled at her was the reminder of the gentle wards leading to their campsite and the grounds around the Black Lake. While she was glad to know their work wouldn't be interrupted, a part of her couldn't help but wonder if the merfolk would feel the headmistress' magic, perhaps lacking the intention she and Malfoy had been so acutely projecting, and bristle at the humans' audacity. There was nothing for it now, she knew, and so she once again set her brain to the task of guiding the worry out of her mind as she walked toward their small table and murmured a request for a light but filling breakfast.

She perched on the middle-edge of one chair, her eyes skimming the selection before lifting a bowl of oatmeal from where it sat next to a plate of sausages. She inhaled the delicate aroma of maple and brown sugar that wafted through the air it moved on the way to its final resting place. Her eyes cut to the tent as Malfoy ducked out of it, arranging his neck and shoulders back into perfect posture the instant he was free of the canvas flap. He was wearing the blue sweater Hermione had pilfered the evening before, and she smirked over her spoon knowing that she'd gotten to it first.

Malfoy made his way over with an easy smile on his face, passing the empty chair and rounding the table until he was standing behind her. She looked up at him over her shoulder and he swooped down to place a kiss on the side of her neck, breathing in deeply. Hermione's pulse stuttered and she was sure he'd be able to feel it from where he nuzzled into her.

"My jumper smells like you," he murmured against her skin. He nudged her gently with the tip of his nose before straightening.

"I shan't apologize," she said primly, sitting up a little taller and holding her spoon with a delicacy she hadn't employed since dining with her wealthy great-aunt as a child on what her mother had called "special occasions." Malfoy reached for a plate of scrambled eggs and toast and took his seat across the table, sending her a pointed look.

"I'd expect nothing less, Princess," he drawled.

Hermione rolled her eyes, ignoring the rogue spark of delight that lit somewhere inside her. She scooped the last of her oatmeal into her mouth and returned the spoon to her empty bowl, standing from her chair.

"I'll check in," she told him and he nodded, turning his attention to the task of ripping his toast into small pieces and adding a bit of egg.

She ducked into their tent and retrieved her water bottle from its place next to her pack, clearing away her supervisor's message (Today's the day! Wishing you both the utmost success and SAFETY in the Black Lake) with a smile and responding briefly.

Feeling well prepared and optimistic. Safety protocols in place. Here we go!

Despite her mindful intention to live in the present moment as often as possible, Hermione couldn't help the familiar flutter of excitement she felt at the thought of writing up their expedition report in the following weeks. Her smile turned a bit more indulgent as she shook her head to recenter her focus on the magnitude of the task before them. Easy, Granger, she told herself. One thrilling adventure at a time.

Malfoy had made quick work of his Frankenscramble by the time she exited the tent. His brows furrowed when he caught sight of the pre-pasted toothbrush in her hand, knowing by now that she would've already done so upon waking; oral hygiene was the first thing she took care of each morning.

"Are you stress-brushing your teeth, Granger?" His tone was teasing, but his eyes darted back and forth between hers. He stood and made his way closer, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder when he reached her. He cupped the other under her chin, tilting her head up so she had little choice but to look at him.

"It's going to be okay, you know," he said softly. "We're well prepared. They won't harm us. And if we're especially lucky, they may even talk to us."
Hermione smiled, her insides going a bit wibbly at his concern.

"I'm going to be trapped in a bubble with my own breath for the next several hours," she replied, her voice a playful reflection of his own near-whisper. "I'd prefer not to surround my senses with the remnants of wet oats while I'm trying to focus on all the good stuff."

"Oh." Malfoy dropped his hands and took a step back, and Hermione immediately regretted the loss of his touch. He looked around her to the tent at her back. "Not a bad idea, that."

She laughed. "For what it's worth," she told him, "I agree with you absolutely."

One gentle brushing (and a quick floss, just to be safe) later, the two of them stood at the shore of the lake, staring out across the surface of the water and preparing in their own ways. For Hermione, that meant deep breaths—inhaling to the recitation of modern-day uses for Devil's Snare (courtesy of Neville's Herbology thesis), exhaling to the recollection of explosives Seamus managed to set off during their tenure at Hogwarts—as she intentionally stretched the muscles in her arms and legs. They would be doing a lot of swimming today, unaided by anything beyond their own physical abilities, and while Hermione was confident in the training she'd done to prepare for this expedition, she couldn't quite shake the fear that her calves would begin to cramp before they reached the colony.

Hours before the sticky sweetness of the morning, she had woken from a dream where Malfoy had had divers' fins strapped to his feet and was propelling himself ahead of her, into the darkness below. His voice in her mind had crackled across their connection, urging her to keep up while she could only push her pleas out her throat, trying to reach him through the barriers and growing distance between them. She'd wrenched herself awake with a gasp right before he'd disappeared fully from her view.

She had sat upright, one hand holding in the rapid pounding of her heart, the other flying up to smack her forehead as she'd come to the fervent conclusion, in her haze of adrenaline and dream remnants, that they had little chance of success without dive fins. Malfoy had awoken at the jolt and stayed up with her, murmuring sleepily, patiently dismissing her irrational, nightmare-fueled worry until the words DIVE FINS were no longer flashing in a bright red sans serif across her mind. And then he'd tugged at her until she'd laid down again, wrapping his arms around her frame and holding her against the steadiness of his chest until she'd fallen asleep once more.

Hermione reached for the sky a final time, her face tilted as though warming it into a mid-morning sunshine, and she felt Malfoy step up behind her. She inched back to close the small space he'd left between their bodies, leaning her head against his shoulder as his arms joined hers in their stretch. He allowed her to entwine their fingers before slowly lowering their hands back to their sides, his longer limbs stretching hers gloriously in the descent. Hermione hummed at the feel of it.

They breathed together for a few moments longer, the synchronous rise and fall of their chests an anchor for her beating heart.

"Okay," she said. "I'm ready."

The two proceeded in relative silence, removing shoes and jeans and jumpers, adding weight belts and warming charms. They wore identical sets of bright green tops with neon yellow bottoms and socks, which Malfoy had agreed to without a fuss but clearly resented on a fashion level. When they were both outfitted, Hermione stood on her tiptoes and pulled him into a hug. He returned it without hesitation, his arms encompassing her ribs and holding her with just the right pressure. She sighed into his neck.

"I'm proud of us," he said, the conviction in his words passing from his chest into hers. Her spirit pulsed.

"Me too."

Then they pulled away from each other and he looked her in the eyes and said, "Legilimens."

The water of his ocean lapped at the roots of her mind, an added calm in her peaceful meadow.

Bubble heads, Malfoy sent, and Hermione knew it was simply his way of confirming the connection was intact. She nodded and, for lack of anything better to say, responded with a rather spontaneous affirmation.

And remember, there's no shame in shouting to be heard.

He grinned, pointed his wand at his head, and cast the spell. No, indeed.

Hermione followed suit and then holstered her wand against her leg. They would be keeping their weapons fully visible but sheathed, not in any way planning to use them but unwilling to leave them behind.

And then they walked forward, side by side, and entered the Black Lake.

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

The water held the same clear calm as the day before, silt floating carelessly around them but not doing much to obscure the visibility. The pair walked along the rocky bottom, not touching but within easy reach of one another, until the weeds began to thicken where they grew upward from the lake floor. Hermione craned her neck to find the surface, estimating with a thrill that they were already about twenty meters down from the air above them. Not that she could say for sure—they'd shuffled the idea of tracking the depth of the day's adventure into the "unnecessary magic" bucket, Malfoy optimistically reasoning that they'd have opportunities in the future to gather data when they were undoubtedly invited back.

While she appreciated his certainty, there was still no guarantee that an accurate depth would ever be recorded. Very little was known about mer-magic, and Hermione had a sneaking suspicion they might have the power to manipulate the depths of their realm in order to keep themselves out of human contact. In which case, if they chose not to meet with the two researchers, they could keep them swimming for hours.

But that wasn't important right now. Instead, she focused her mind and magic on opening itself to the universe around her and took a cleansing breath in through her nose.

"Inhalamus," she murmured in the confines of her charmed airspace, visualizing herself floating neutrally in the surrounding water and feeling her body lift as the bubble around her head expanded. From the corner of her eye, she saw Malfoy rising up off the floor as well. He kicked twice, small flutters of his feet that barely disturbed the water around him, lifting until he was suspended a careful distance above the thick weeds. Hermione used her arms to propel herself up to where he floated with a soft smile on his face.

Onward?

Malfoy made an exaggerated point of rolling his neck and stretching his arms out in front of himself, fingers interlocked and palms outward. Hermione, for her part, didn't hear any knuckles crack, although that might only be because of the extra layer of magic and air surrounding her head. Regardless, she smiled at his antics and nodded when his Ready entered her mind. She did her own mental stretch, then shifted her body horizontal and began to propel herself forward and down, deeper into the lake than she'd ever (actively) gone before.

The time and landscape (lakescape?) passed slowly as they moved, the daylight behind them growing dimmer the farther they traveled. She'd known it would, of course, but it was still rather unsettling to experience in real time. Especially when, just as the light had reached an eerie gloom, she caught sight of movement shifting against the thick weeds below them.

Grindylow.

Malfoy was at her side moments later. They had agreed to approach the merfolk as a team but not as a unit, clearly together but not from an overt position of strength. But they'd also prepared for interactions of a more unsavory nature, and grindylows, while they could be vicious, were known to avoid creatures or groups much bigger than themselves. With their matching attire and unaccustomed presence in the lake, the two of them together had the advantage of appearing larger and more imposing than they did as a separated pair.

I'll steer us, he sent back, looping his arm through hers. Keep your eye on it, and share the view if you can.

Hermione did, for as long as the creature was within her line of sight. But it didn't seem to be following them—good news overall, but deeply unsettling in the sense that once it was out of view, she simply had to trust that it wasn't going to sneak up on them from behind. She kept her eyes downward, focused on the weeds while Malfoy looked ahead, until nothing at all was showing from the darkness of the lake floor. She pushed the air out of her lungs, trying to settle both her thoughts and her pounding heart.

I think we're in the clear, she sent to him. It was getting harder to swim this way, their inside arms pinned to their sides, pushing themselves onward mostly by the kicking of their feet. She wanted the full range of her physical abilities restored, to be able to feel her whole being as it worked through the water. Harry had had webbed hands and feet when he'd done this, and Viktor had been half a shark. Cedric had been the only champion to reach the merfolk under the power of his own human body, and even he'd had the benefit of their song to guide him. Without any of those advantages—and, for that matter, entering the lake at some distance from where the champions had done so all those years ago—Hermione was beginning to fret about how long it would take them to reach the colony. If they ever managed to at all.

But by the time they disentangled their limbs, the darkness around them was so oppressive that she couldn't even put an arm's length between herself and Malfoy without losing sight of him.

Nope, his voice sounded in her mind, and he looped his pinky with hers. She exhaled another cleansing breath and decided to be grateful for his proximity. She let her outer arm float at a similar angle to the one between them, feeling a semblance of rightness at her body's symmetry.

That rightness lasted for about thirty seconds, before the light from above disappeared entirely, and Hermione could see nothing at all.

She tensed, every muscle that she'd so intentionally limbered up that morning feeling suddenly leaden under her skin, to the point that she was almost expecting herself to sink down to the lake floor with the new weight of it. Not that she would've been able to notice it happening until her body had touched the ground below them. Logically, she knew that her body was still at the same angle it had been a minute before, and that up was above her back and down was below her chest. But still she felt disoriented, abruptly unable to trust her logic and memory of her body's positioning. And with the bubble head charm in place, it's not like she could blow out an air bubble and feel which way it traveled toward the surface. With her free hand, she began pulling at her tight clothing, hoping to release some small trapped pocket of air for confirmation that they hadn't somehow gotten turned around.

I want to try something. Malfoy's words rustled the brittle grasses of her meadow. Hermione forced herself to breathe regularly, doing her best not to break his little finger with her tightening grip. Her thoughts were sticking in the darkness that surrounded her, and their physical connection wouldn't be enough to keep her from spiraling for much longer.

Go for it, she sent back, blithe and unfocused, now blinking rapidly as though she could force the nonexistent light to bring some illumination to her vision.

Well, more like I want to test something. He was keeping them moving onward—Hermione could tell by the tug she felt, drawing her along from where they connected. But it's your brain that I'm curious about, so you'll have to lead this one.

That bumped her out of her hyper-awareness of the dark, at least momentarily.

What are you on about?

Well, he sent, considering, it's this whole photographic memory thing. Does it work for sounds as well?

She sighed. I'm sorry, Malfoy, I already told you I was unconscious the last time I heard the music of these merpeople. I don't think I'll be able to recall it.

A delicate scoff brushed across her mind. Please, we'll be hearing that soon enough on our own, he told her haughtily, and her eyes snapped involuntarily to the place where she knew he was swimming at her side. But her stomach lurched at not being able to see him there, and she quickly moved her empty gaze back to the space in front of her.

What, then? His ocean was rocking a gently rhythm into her thoughts, the back and forth of it lulling her spiked heart rate to a more reasonable pulse.

I was just wondering if you'd be able to share that song with me through here, instead of waiting until we get back to London. For the life of her, Hermione's grasping mind couldn't place what he was talking about, and after a few long seconds Malfoy continued. You said it was a family favorite, so I figure it's all but burned into that big, beautiful brain of yours.

Kathy's Song. The title floated up in her mind, the scripted text pale against an otherwise black background, and she seized it with all of the focus that was currently trained on both panicking and keeping calm.

Not to mention, Malfoy was still speaking steadily across their connection, the last time you brought it out the merfolk ended up making an appearance, so there's a non-zero chance it's some form of good luck.

Hermione was already calling up track eleven of Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits from where it lived in her memory, and she felt her chuckle wind like a sigh through the meadow of her mind.

You know I'm always supportive of testing a theory, she sent him drily, and allowed the finger picking to swell across their connection and trip like a breeze over the wildflowers that burst in patches from the ground.

The comfort of the familiar melody, the love behind each word, seeped into Hermione's very bones. She honestly couldn't say how accurately her memory portrayed the folk-laden acoustic guitar or the rise and fall of Paul Simon's voice as he sang, but the spirit of the song was strong and true in what she shared, and she felt herself relax, little by little, her lips drawing up at the corners.

There was no shocking interruption this time around, no merfolk making their sudden appearance when she wasn't even looking. In fact, by the time the song ended, Hermione's eyes were so wide and her gaze was so intent on the abyss in front of her that she was certain her brain had forced a speck of light to appear in the lower-left corner of her vision, like the floaters that hinted at the edges of her sight when she spent too many hours toiling over paperwork.

But the light didn't disappear when she shifted her focus to look directly at it, and she realized with a start that it wasn't a figment of her overworked brain.

Oh. The syllable rushed across their connection and she tugged at Malfoy's pinky. Do you see it?

I see it. He moved his hand until it was clasping hers. Alright to adjust our trajectory?

"Yes," she breathed, and then, shaking her head a little, Yes.

So he turned them, keeping a running commentary going as they shifted toward the light. They began by angling themselves steeply downward to ensure that by the time they approached the civilization, they would be doing so from an outer limit and not from above. It took nearly five minutes to reach the lake floor (complete with the occasional inhalamus to keep them from dropping too quickly), which Hermione had, until that point, thought to be no more than ten meters beneath them all this while. But apparently there had been a drop-off shortly after she'd lost sight of the grindylow. She shuddered at the thought of so much open water between their bodies and (relatively) solid ground—and of all the creatures that might fill it.

Then the silty bottom was suddenly very close, and Malfoy's sharp Hup matched the swoop of her stomach as she flailed out her arms to slow her body's descent, dropping his hand in the process of avoiding an undignified faceplant.

When she finally righted her body, following a series of awkward pushes against the surrounding water and a fair bit of rather impressive core tightening, she was floating a meter or so above the lake floor once again, the light some distance ahead of her but bright enough to allow some visibility at least. She caught the vibrant yellow of Malfoy's pants to her left and made her way slowly toward him as he got himself in order. Her heart was pounding, both from her near-crash and the reality of their situation. They were about to approach the Black Lake merfolk colony. And they were going to attempt communication with the very merpeople who had chosen to sever ties with all terrestrial beings.

No pressure.

Malfoy worked his way in front of her, positioning his body so his back was to the light of what they could only assume was the underwater civilization. He reached out and took her hands in his, then met her gaze. His eyes were a bit wild, but his presence in her mind was even and calm.

I want to make sure we've still got a strong connection going, he sent through an unblinking stare. Hermione's eyes immediately started to water.

Right, she sent back, letting her lids close naturally for just a moment, knowing objectively that it wouldn't disrupt their connection and overruling the shrill, paranoid part of her that demanded unending eye contact for peak Legilimency to occur. Any particular way you want to test it, or is this enough?

He brushed against the thoughts she'd made available to him in time with the sweeping of his thumbs across the backs of her hands.

I think we're set, he said, and squeezed her fingers once before letting her go and turning back to their destination. Shall we?

Hermione pushed her Yes past the litany of It's happening, oh my gosh we're doing this, we're here, here we go that bounced around her station and began to swim forward, making sure to keep her body at no less than a forty-five degree angle from the bottom—for visibility and authentic human representation alike.

They moved in relative silence, every so often sending a word or phrase across the connection to confirm its hold but otherwise not interacting much. As much as she would've liked to, they weren't holding hands or maintaining any other type of physical contact. They were simply two representatives from their race, approaching a mysterious civilization completely uninvited, hoping to establish some form of rapport and fully prepared to accept a dismissal.

The light grew brighter as they swam, filling more of Hermione's vision and illuminating the lake around and in front of them for a good fifteen meters in every direction. She tried, once again, to quell the nagging knowledge that beyond the light's range was so, so much open water. The bottom shifted from a mucky sort of silt to a more stony makeup the farther they traveled, with first pebbles and then rocks and ultimately boulders scattered about. And then—

It's a house.

They slowed as they approached the small abode, hewn from large pieces of stone that fit together so well that Hermione had to strain to see where rock met rock under the creeping algae across its surface. She marveled at the strength it must've taken to carve windows and doorways against the pressured resistance of the still water—another tally in the stay-humble column for their (hopefully) upcoming encounter. Weeds grew in wending paths around the dwelling, making up a garden that rivaled some of the more impressive crop circles Hermione had learned about long ago. There didn't seem to be any other buildings around, only a handful of small cairns popping up here and there among the grassy designs.

As they passed a respectful distance from the doorway, they stopped, allowing any resident the opportunity to approach them but not daring to peer inside. When they saw no movement for thirty seconds, they continued, and Hermione put in a notable amount of effort to not turn around and see if anyone was following them through the eerie stillness.

Now I know how Theseus felt, she sent absently, and Malfoy's snort rustled the leaves of a bush with soft blue flowers.

And you know how that one ends, Granger, he chided. Trust. Don't look back.

She nodded her agreement and they continued onward. After a few minutes, another home appeared, and then another, and before long they were clustered in groups of three and four with ethereally beautiful shared yards at each center. They slowed as the houses became more numerous, but no longer paused when they came even with the doorways. It appeared that no one was home—that, or no one wanted to come out and greet them.

When at last the outskirts turned into the village proper, Hermione all but lost her breath and entirely lost her forward momentum. It was an incredible sight.

The buildings were larger here and much closer together, built in neat lines that formed a square around the center of the colony. In the middle of the square was an enormous boulder that had been sculpted to resemble a merperson with wild hair and a face that was somehow both blank and deeply expressive. There were thick ropes of pebbles draped around the statue's neck, and atop its head lay a physical crown of spiked bramble that, if Hermione had to guess, looked like it came from the Forbidden Forest. The light was shining from within the woven branches, as though moonlight itself had been worked into the woody stems. She had to twist her neck to gawk up at the thing in its entirety, and almost instinctively she felt her arms raise gently to waist height, palms facing upward. She had no doubt Malfoy was doing the same beside her.

Their mute appreciation was interrupted by a sharp clacking from directly behind them, an ominous noise that sounded to Hermione like the teeth of laughing skeletons in those child-appropriate scary movies she'd watched as a little girl. It felt absolutely predatory.

She spun as gracefully as she could, looking just long enough to confirm they weren't under threat of the giant squid's crushing mandible before sweeping automatically into her practiced bow. She was honestly surprised at how smooth the motion was, transitioning as she did from craning her neck upward to bowing deeply in the exact opposite direction, but Hermione knew from the feel of it that her form was ideal. Her entire body arched gracefully, her face and palms pointing toward the stony bottom. She brushed away all other thought and allowed the authentic deference and humility to infuse her very being.

After all, it wasn't every day that strangers were allowed into the realm of these intentionally isolated beings.

Malfoy said nothing across their connection, and for that Hermione was grateful. She could still feel his presence in her mind, and that was enough. This moment was not about their connection with one another. It was about establishing new connections with the community that now hovered several meters away. So she breathed, and she waited, and she watched the lake floor and felt calm and certain and blessedly blank in her mind.

When her eye caught a movement, she willed her heart to maintain its steady rhythm. A strip of silver scales lingered at the corner of her vision where, she presumed, one of the merpeople had broken off from the crowd and approached them, stopping (as far as she could tell) directly in front of Malfoy. He must have come to the same conclusion, because the next thing she knew, her vision was overlayed with his almost-identical view—the main difference being the amount of powerful, fish-like tail taking up the frame.

She shifted the focus in her mind so his perspective was at the forefront, just in time for it to change. In one fluid motion, Malfoy's gaze shifted smoothly upward back the way he had come, granting Hermione a full, bottom-to-top view of the merperson in front of them.

The tail was covered in large, thick scales of flashing silver that glinted with the light emanating from the statue's crown, those in shadow still shining somehow with an onyx gleam. Here and there were scars, carved like scratches and chinks in fine armor. It curved upward at the end and spread into a wide and glorious fin that hovered behind where the thighs of a human would be, ethereal and nearly translucent yet shimmering with irregular streaks of gold and green. Near the middle, the scales shifted seamlessly into hard skin the color of slate, wiry arms extending a bit longer than typical of an adult human, with slender-fingered hands and thin webbing that connected the digits below each second knuckle. There was no tapered waist, no broadening of the shoulders, and, Hermione noted with scientific curiosity, no nipples to speak of—simply the body of a fish transitioning at a point to include human elements.

Until her attention skated higher to the neck. Here, the shape of the merperson (and those behind them, she observed) finally narrowed into a hefty, bare column that supported an elongated head with a barely-there nose and a slash of a closed mouth, no lips to speak of. The eyes, though, were enormous, bulbous and yellow with a gleam that seemed to originate from somewhere behind their irises. Hermione couldn't see any brows or lashes, but there was dark hair that she was sure would've pooled around the merperson's head if it hadn't been pulled tightly back and away from the face.

The representative of the colony simply stared at Malfoy, eyes hard and unblinking as they took him in. For his part, Malfoy was still and silent by her side, no thoughts coming forward across their connection. Hermione snagged and carefully stored the errant consideration of how Occlumency might impact deference.

When it became clear that this examination wouldn't be a quick one, she began to study the gathered merfolk further away, only now taking in their numbers (at least thirty, possibly more, all of them blessedly unarmed) while trying and failing to identify someone who might be in charge. In their fourth year at Hogwarts, Dumbledore had communed with their leader, whom he referred to as Merchieftainess Murcus, following the second task. Hermione hadn't gotten any sort of glimpse of the merpeople that day, bustled in a blanket to the Champions' tent and fretted over by Madame Pomfrey and Viktor as she was, but even without a clear visual in mind, she didn't see anyone gathered before them who looked as though they carried a title that set them apart.

Finally, after what felt like an age, she saw the merperson in front of them shift his gaze from Malfoy to herself. That was all the warning she got before she felt a strong shove to the tips of her pointed toes and her body was spun in a reverse bow until she was upright once more. She straightened her legs to avoid swinging back downward like a pendulum, but she kept her palms upward and her thoughts humble, and she shifted her focus back to her own view and carefully met the eyes of the being in front of her.

Malfoy's shared perspective hadn't been able to convey the intensity of the gaze now locked on her, how it felt like it was piercing through her expression and reading a truth that knitted throughout the very tissue in her body. The merperson's expression never changed, and Hermione centered her breathing and her gratitude and settled in for her appraisal. The two had agreed they would not speak unless spoken to; they hadn't been invited, after all, and had nothing to offer to the colony they'd imposed their presence upon. Best to be patient and let the locals take the lead.

But apparently she was much less interesting than Malfoy had been. After only a minute or two, the assessor pulled their lips back to reveal jagged teeth, a paler yellow than those incandescent eyes but unsettling nonetheless. A deep note poured around them, penetrating Hermione's bubble and reaching softly to her ears. She felt her eyes close briefly at the peace she felt before forcing them back open. The rest of the merfolk were coming toward them, expressions intent.

This is it, was all she had time to send to Malfoy's mind. Then the merperson in front of them darted a hand forward, their movement unexpectedly quick, and compressed the bright orange clips of Hermione's weight belt—pulling the anchor away from her waist and watching, wide-eyed, as her body rocketed toward the surface.

A/N: Hat tip to Chalice13 for the concept of merfolk manipulating depths to ensure the safety and solitude of their colonies.

My goal is to post every 2 weeks until the story is over. I think there are two chapters remaining, and that this piece will (finally!) be completed by the end of 2024.